Today I was chatting with my mother in law. She is a professional educator and I was telling her how just sitting at the breakfast table and talking about the story of Chanukah, the kids absorb so much. They ask questions and we discuss the different concepts and words and it becomes something that they truly understand, not just a story being told to them.

Some conversation pieces that came up this morning were
“what is a war” – from talking about the war that the Macabis faught
“where is Syria and Greece” – which led us to our map on the wall and looked at where those countries are situated today
“why didn’t the Yevanim like the Jews?” this was a tough one considering my Cutie is only 4, but these questions just kept coming and coming…

I then showed them how we can use olive oil to light a menorah and we took a babyfood jar and filled it half way, put a wick inside and lit it and watched for a few hours to see how long it lasted. Then we discussed how the oil in the Menorah lasted 8 DAYS!!! The kids really understood how that was really such a miracle since they saw with their own eyes that it only lasted a few hours, never mind a whole day!

We then painted with dreidels which Cutie loved- he dipped the dreidel into red paint which I put into a teaspoon and then spun it on a piece of paper. He loved the different designs it came up with, the finished product is gorgeous but here he is in action:

Then we learned Parshas VaYeshev and decided to paint a multi colored coat for Yosef. I took an old white T-shirt and cut it down just the front so it looked like a coat. We then laid it out and everyone got a bunch of different colored paints and painted it. We laid it to dry and got a gorgeous multicolored coat! While it was drying, the kids decided to continue with the paints and fingerpainted on the paper that I had laid out under the coat. It was a great great activity and they had a ball!

oh- and we BAKED Sufganiyot- SO easy, I did it with all 3 kids…
I got the recipe from Redbook Magazine, heres the recipe:Sufganiyot Recipe
They came out delicious!

So thats it for now, we will see what other fun activities we come up with as the week progresses! a wonderful week to all~~~